Life's a juggle…

September Habit Review – 15 minutes on the house

Days habit missed: Hmm, lots

Ease of doing daily: Hard

Equipment required: Mess, a will of iron

Is it something I’ll continue? Er…

This habit was to spend 15 mins a day doing something to make the house nicer – tidying, decluttering, sorting house admin etc. Ok, confession time, I’ve been rubbish at this habit. I think I lasted approximately a fortnight doing timed daily tidy ups.

I think the issue with this habit was that I introduced it at a time when I was under at bit (ok, a lot) of time pressure – I’d just started my new job, I’d also started my course and was working out deadlines, extra reading and just getting to lectures. I’d also introduced quite a few habits by that point that took time, although not much in themselves, trying to fit in 5 mins of abs, 10 mins of meditation etc, on top of the non-time specific ones (but ones which still take time), like doing the washing up and fitting in 10000 steps every day, and it was all feeling a bit too much.

There’s also the piece about not having a natural inclination to be tidy!

But whilst I haven’t been rigid in my adherence to this habit, I have made quite a bit of progress this year in terms of tidying and decluttering. I finished digitising our (substantial) CD collection. I chucked out 435 items in my February challenge, I have got rid of substantial amounts of baby clobber and you can now see the floor in the study. It probably helps that we have just put the house on the market, so we’re having to maintain an unnatural level of tidiness for viewings! That’s also given the impetus to deal with some of the hotspots round the house and clear the piles that seem to accumulate around the place.

So, I’m actually pleased with how things have gone over the past 12 months. I think that having a month where I focussed some specific goals on the house has been really helpful. And whilst I haven’t added a daily habit, I have definitely got better at keeping on top of things as I go along, it’s not perfect for sure, but it’s progress!